"A majority taken collectively is only an individual, whose opinions, and frequently whose interests, are opposed to those of another individual, who is styled a minority. If it be admitted that a man possessing absolute power may misuse that power wronging his adversaries, why should not a majority be liable to the same reproach?" - Tocqueville, Democracy in America

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Friday, April 24, 2009

Dear Mr Todt,

I am an average Malaysian busybody. And also a petrol head. I am about to shower on you the usual Malaysian hospitality.

On behalf of all average Malaysians, I would like to congratulate you on being accepted by our Government into the Malaysian 2nd Home scheme. I could see that you are well pleased as your application was approved "faster than a Ferrari", to borrow your words. You see, our Government is very efficient. If they want to. That is. But frankly Mr Todt, that was not fast enough. Because Ferraris are not that fast. You should have said, "faster than a Nissan GTR". Now, that would be damn fast!

May I welcome you to Malaysia, your second home. I am sure you will be pleased to bits to be here. Frankly, you will feel at home here. There are so many Ferraris on the road here. And they all drive within the speed limit, namely, 110. But of course they forget, the 110 shown on the Ferrari's speedometer is in mph. At the F1 track, there are also many Ferraris, although, quite strangely, some of them could be seen resting in the gravel trap at turn 13. I don't really know why.

You may want to know what an "average" Malaysian is. Allow me to describe. Average Malaysians are simple men and women. In the good old Great Britain, they might be referred to as "the simpletons". But you must remember, in Malaysia, there are 2 categories of "simple" people.

First, there are simple people with entitlements to a lot of things. Like flying first class on tax payers' money. Like making technical trips to Disneyland, Dubai or where ever. Like staying in Presidential suites at 5 star hotels and being driven in a limousine rented for more than RM2000 a day. These are simple people with entitlements and also with simple tastes.

The second category are the simple people without entitlement. These are people like myself. You can meet these people on the streets of Malaysia, in the LRT, LCCT or at the Central Market in KL. Their Disneyland is in Ulu Kelang. Their Presidential suite is in their own terrace houses. And they are driven daily in buses which also, sometime, double up as mobile caskets!

I was looking at your picture with your pretty girlfriend the other day Mr Todt. Gosh, you look old! But don't fret. In Malaysia, you can get easy and cheap treatment for your old look and start looking younger by the day. You just have to eat what most simple men eat in Malaysia. We call it "tempe" (pronounced "tempt-pay"). Eat that stuff dude. You will look younger in no time. But it won't make you any taller though, sadly. Or any longer, for that matter.

If you are feeling a tad tired in bed, fret not Mr Todt. In Malaysia, we do not take viagra. We take a herb called Tongkat Ali. I tell you. We have Tongkat Ali coffee. We also have Tongkat Ali tea. Even Tongkat Ali isotonic drinks we have. The other day, I even saw Tongkat Ali toothpaste. Although I must confess that it escaped me as to the exact functions of the Tongkat Ali in a toothpaste. Soon I heard, Petronas might have a Tongkat Ali premium fuel for cars like your Ferraris. Perhaps, with that fuel, your Scuderia or Maranello might be able to be nearer to the GTR's tailpipe on the track. Just perhaps.

There are several things which you cannot do in Malaysia Mr Todt. First of all, you cannot, ever ever, mention the name of a certain dead Mongolian woman. No. You cannot do that. You see, I am not even mentioning it. Not only that. You cannot read about her too. Or hear news about her. No, you cannot. Remember that.

If you did, you might be arrested and put in the lock up. Oh no. You wouldn't want that to happen Mr Todt. In the lock up, you might turn crazy and beat yourself with certain blunt, hard, but flexible (let me repeat that, "but flexible") object. This may cause lacerations and deep wounds on your body. But again, do not fret Mr Todt. Because if you do not suffer from an "underlying acute myocarditis", you will be okay. Meaning, you won't die. You will only die if you have that condition. Otherwise, you may continue to whack yourself silly with the blunt, hard but very flexible object and nothing will happen to you. You might froth in the mouth, like the first time you saw Ms Yeoh, but you will not die. Don't worry.

Speaking of being worried, are you worried about your safety in Malaysia? If you do, just call the Home Ministry. It will organise your detention under the Internal Security Act, in order to protect your safety. You can then wine and dine in a dimly lit dungeon. A blunt, hard, but very flexible, object might be given to you for further safety. By the way, while we are talking about safety, you may not want to go anywhere near a place in KL called Chow Kitt. That place, mind you, is so unsafe that even a police beat was closed down because the police were feeling unsafe!

Do you like reality TV Mr Todt? If you do, Malaysia is the place for you. You can choose from an array of reality TV shows. We have all the reality TV shows from the US and UK. But if you prefer local ones, there are also a hell of a lot.

The thing is, Malaysia - the whole Malaysia, that is - is a reality show by itself. But the voting takes place only once in 4 or 5 years. The current reality show started on March the 8th last year. The voting will take place within the next 4 years or so. But sometime, just to test the ground, there will be "mini-voting". Just to allow all Malaysians a chance to show their voting trend in the big one in 4 years time. So far, we already had 5 mini voting.

Ask Ms Yeoh. She might be able to tell you who is leading in this reality show. But then again, this show is so full of twists and turns that you will never know. Just sit back and observe Mr Todt. I am sure there is no other show on earth which is better than this Malaysian reality show. In fact, this blog, and this whole business of you being accepted into this Second home thingy is also a part of the show! Wooo....you are now an actor Bro!

One more thing that you might notice soon Mr Todt is that we are obsessed with the phrase "social contract". Everyone is talking about it, including me. But nobody has ever seen it. Nope. Nobody. I will leave it to you then to surmise whether we, Malaysian, are a hallucinating and delusional lot.

Then there is the mainstream mass media. These are local TV channels and local newspapers. You can of course watch the news on these channels. Or read them from the local newspapers. May I suggest however that after you had done that, please read the same news on the internet. You will find there are differences between the one which you read in the newspapers or watch on the local TV and the one which you read on the net. You are of course at liberty to believe which ever version you like. You would not however be wrong to opine that Malaysian journalists are a schizophrenic lot.

You might not be used to some of our concepts here Mr Todt. In your country, you pay taxes. Your Government then use your taxes to provide amenities for you and all citizens. However, in Malaysia, despite your taxes, you still have to pay tolls for using the highways and pay money for some people to take care of your sewage, for example. You pay duties on your cars and also road tax to use the same. You pay fees for broadband services but you only get slow internet connection and when you ask the provider what the hell is going on, they would say sorry Sir, the speed is on best endeavour basis. Well, sometime, when you are tired, you might just say best endeavour my fu@#ing foot, you cheats!

You will find, Mr Todt, that in the corporate world, Malaysia is quite unique. For example, we have a monopoly business making a 900 million loss! The CEO of that company then became CEO of the year!Then we have a government fund management company whose investment shrunk by 10 billion and instead of raising questions, their fund portfolio is increased by 10 billion too! Then we have a company which cannot deliver ships which they were supposed to build for whatever billions. In your country, the buyer of the ships would terminate the contract and sue the pants off of the ship builder. But here we give extension of time to the builder and voluntarily increase the price of the ships by a couple more billions! And until now the ships are nowhere to be seen. Then we have some kind of a port service area built for gazellions but it is not utilised.

Yes Mr Todt, we are a bit different from the others. Perhaps because we take Tongkat Ali.

You have made my day. I was feeling quite blue thinking about poor RPK. Poor man is in hiding because he dares to baulk a rotten system. A courageous man having to resort to such measures for his sanity and freedom, what century are we living in for goodness sake!

With RPK and men like you still around, dare I nurture just a teensy weensy flickering of hope in this present time of darkness? You stand up and be counted too Encik Harun!!

BTW, my husband who is an Aussie will not qualify for the Malaysia my second home programme because I am Malaysian so he has to apply under the Foreign spouse thingy. Then again Michelle and Todt are not married, are they? Then again my husband will never ever apply because we are very happy where we are, thank you.

Dear Art,My husband is French. He always mentions Jean Todt whenever we watch a F1 race. I showed him your article and he burst out laughing (btw, he is also on MM2H). Good one. I am certain he is going to share this with his French friends back home!

Mr Todt must learn to pronounce our word " social contract" properly...It shall be pronounce "So' and then emphasize the word 'Sial'....then he can truly understand the psychology of our simple person society...

"dear mt todt.. in malaysia they frown upon people who are unmarried but live together. please marry miss yeah now while she still look like a human and all that botox can fight the wrinkles. She is pushing 50 and soon osteoperosis would settle in. But dont worry mr todt. in malaysia we have plenty of wannabe actress and jandas just waiting for dirty old men like you to be their white night.. just dump yeoh once you get tired of her.."

Please also remember that if you wanna set up a company here, in certain lucrative industries, or even not so lucrative industries, you have to give 30% ownership to the Malaysians. Wait...did I say Malaysians? No, I meant MALAYsians. Please note the emphasis.

Also, you will grow to learn that, MALAYsians will treat you better, being a white skinned foreigner, than they treat their fellow Malaysians sometimes. At least, when you put up with calls calling for you to "Go back to your country", it is still valid compared actually Malaysians being asked to "Go back to your country" by fellow MALAYsians.

It's all a feeling of entitlement that the MALAYsians get you see. But it's ok, Malaysia is truly Asia, and we are a multiracial and HARMONIOUS society and lately we're even 1Malaysia. However, multiracial means Bugis, Riau, Sumatera, Java...and harmonius society means Muslims from all over can coexist. To hell with the others.

Actually even the Immigration Dept. officials are not too sure about this MM2ndHome thing. Friend of mine, Malaysian, married to Englishman recently went back to settle down in Malaysia on MM2ndHome thingy. She was later told by another Immigration official that her husband was not entitled to MM2ndHome as she is Malaysian. So is this Todt feller married to Ms Yeoh or not? anyway, what does it matter. If you have money and know people in high places you don't have to queue up to get PR or resident's permit. Another friend of mine, also Malaysian, married to an American, couldn't get PR for her husband despite the fact he had lived here for yonks. Up until he was too ill to fly he had to leave and re-enter Malaysia to get a 6-month stay permit.

PS: Art, you got me so curious about this Todt feller (I'd never heard of him until today 'cos I'm not into F1 and cars, you see)that I looked him up on the net and got this pic of him Ms Yeo (link below). Is he a shortie or was he sitting down in the pic?

AN ORDINARY PERSON LIKE ME, MARRIED TO A MALAYSIAN CITIZEN, I HAVE WAITED FOR 17 YEARS AND AT IMMIGRATION I AM TOLD "SABAR" PATIENCE!! THAT EXISTS ONLY IN THE MALAY DICTIONARY - PATIENCE FOR 17 YEARS!!!

I AM STILL AWAITING MY PR HAVING CHILDREN WHO ARE TEENAGERS TOO AND MY VISA HAS TO BE RENEWED EACH YEAR.

BRAVO FOR YOU, OTHERWISE LIKE US YOU WILL ONLY GET PR WHEN YOU DIE AND GET BURIED IN THIS COUNTRY.

Great balls of fire, Art!Bullseye again!This could well be another script for Instant Cafe Theater, or what's left of it.Bloody, and I mean BLOODY good one!My staff are wondering why their boss is laughing in his room alone.Hehehe

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About Me

Art Harun believes that he is a failed government experiment, abandoned and left alone to roam the streets after all remedial efforts yielded no positive result. He calls himself a non-governmental organism, practices law for a living and tries very hard to play guitar, sing, race cars and write some stuffs to stay alive.